Bill Gates was the keynote speaker in Seattle February 24 at
the largest meeting in the United States of AIDS physicians and medical
researchers. As a biostatistician doing AIDS research, I attended the
conference. I also wrote the leaflet printed below and passed it out to people
as they entered the large ballroom where Gates was to deliver his speech. After
I had passed out 400 leaflets in ten minutes, two security guards suddenly
grabbed me, pulled me out of the ballroom and, acting on instructions from the
conference Planning Committee, took away my credentials badge and barred me from
the rest of the four day meeting.

The next morning I asked for my badge back and was told it
would not be returned. I decided to plant myself at a table in a part of the
convention hall open to the public and tell everybody I recognized who came by
what had happened. Many literally could not believe it at first. People were
furious. One doctor said, "Not only is this a violation of free speech, but I
agree with the leaflet!" Several went to talk to scientists on the Planning
Committee to express their outrage.

By noon twenty-three people (everybody I knew personally and
had asked) told me they would sign a letter to the Chair of the conference
demanding a public apology. At one o'clock five physicians and a fellow
biostatistician were sitting around my table, discussing not only their anger at
what happened to me, but sharing stories about what's happened in the US since
9/11. One doctor said 9/11 reminded him of the burning of the Reichstag
an event staged by the Nazis to justify suppressing the civil rights of ordinary
Germans.

Another doctor said he once car-pooled with a CEO of a big
company who during the ride one day said, "Today I'm going to really stick it to
the workers" by diverting the profits from their "profit-sharing" part of the
company to another part of the company. Another doctor told a similar story and
then, in mid-sentence, said, "Oh, my god, I can't believe I'm agreeing with your
radical leaflet!" Then another doctor at the table said, "We've got to get you
back inside today."

The doctors decided to find the Chair of the Planning
Committee and tell her I should be re-admitted, and went off to do just that.
Two hours later a conference official found me and handed me back my badge,
saying "The Planning Committee changed their mind."

I wore that badge for the rest of the conference with a big
grin on my face and every time I met anybody I knew I told them the story. A
doctor from California said, "Wow! This is the most exciting thing I've been
involved in since I was a student at Berkeley in the 60's." He added, "Gee
John, I didn't know you were such a Marxist." I said "I'm not. Communism is
terrible too." He said, "Well that's a new one for me, somebody who's
anti-capitalist and anti-communist." The next day I met two doctors from NYC who
said how much they liked the leaflet and that they wanted to be on my e-mail
list in the future.

Doctors at this meeting demonstrated that they don't want
their professional meetings to be used as platforms where people like Bill Gates
can paint capitalist privilege and inequality as a benevolent force and not have
to worry about anybody passing out a contrary leaflet. The doctors in Seattle
showed that solidarity and a willingness to stand up for what they think is
right can happen even among people who wear stethoscopes.